SECT. IX.

Against the modern FREE-THINKERS.

SIR,

T

HERE arrived in this neighbourhood two days ago one of your gay gentlemen of the town, who being attended at his entry with a • fervant of his own, befides a countryman he had taken up for a guide, excited the curiofity of the village to learn whence and what he might be. The countryman (to whom they applied as most easy of accefs) knew little more than that the gentleman came from London to travel and fee fashions, and was, as he heard fay, a Freethinker: What religion that might be, he could not tell; and for his own C part, if they had not told him the man was a Free-thinker, he fhould have gueffed, by his way of talking, he was

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little better than a Heathen; excepting only that he had been a good gentleman to him, and made him drunk twice in one day, over and above what they had bargained for.

I do not look upon the fimplicity of this, and several odd enquiries withwhich I fhall trouble you, to be wondered at, much lefs can I think that our youths of fine wit, and enlarged understandings, have any reason tolaugh. There is no neceffity that every Iquire in Great-Britain fhould know what the word Free-thinker ftands for; but it were much to be wished, that they who valued themselves upon that conceited title, were a little better inftructed in what it ought to ftand for ; and that they would not perfuade themfelves a man is really and truly a Freethinker in any tolerable fenfe, merely by virtue of his being an Atheist, or an 'Infidel of any other diftinction. may be doubted with good reason, whether there ever was in nature a more abject, flavish, and bigotted generation than the tribe of Beaux Efprits, at prefent fo prevailing in this ifland. Their pretenfion to be Free-thinkers,

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is no other than rakes have to be freelivers, and favages to be free-men, that is, they can think whatever they have a mind to, and give themselves up to whatever conceit the extravagancy of their inclination, or their fancy, thall fuggeft; they can think as wildly as talk and act, and will not endure that their wit fhould be controlled by fuch formal things as decency and common fenfe: Deduction, coherence, confiftency, and all the rules of reason they accordingly disdain, as too precife and mechanical for men of a liberal education.

This, as far as I could ever learn from their writings, or my own obfervation, is a true account of the British Free-thinker. Our vifitant here, who gave occafion to this paper, has brought with him a new fyftem of common fense, the particulars of which I am not yet acquainted with, but will lofe no opportunity of informing my felf whether it contain any thing worth Mr. SPECTATOR's notice. In the mean time, Sir, I cannot but think it 'would be for the good of mankind, if you would take this fubject into your own confideration, and convince the hope

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ful youth of our nation, that licen• tioufness is not freedom; or, if such a paradox will not be understood, that a 'prejudice towards Atheism is not impartiality.

T

I am, Sir, your most humble Servant,

PHILONOUS.

Quidquid eft illud, quod fentit, quod fapit, quod vult, quod viget, cœlefte divinum eft, ob eamque rem aternum fit neceffe eft.

I

Tull.

Am diverted from the account I was giving the town of my particular concerns, by cafting my eye upon a treatife, which I could not overlook without an inexcufable negligence, and want of concern for all the civil, as well as religious interefts of mankind. This piece has for its title, A difcourfe of free-thinking, occafioned by the rife and growth of a fect called free-thinkers. The Author ve-. ry methodically enters upon his argument, and fays, By free-thinking, I mean the ufe of the understanding in endeavouring to find out the meaning of any propofition whatfoever, in confidering the nature of the evidence for, or against, and in judging of it according to the feeming force or weakness of the evidence. As foon as he has M 4

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delivered this definition, from which one would expect he did not defign to fhew a particular inclination for or against any thing before he had confidered it, he gives up all title to the character of a Free-thinker, with the most appa rent prejudice against a body of men, whom of all other a good man would be moft careful not to violate, I mean men in holy orders. Perfons who have devoted themselves to the fervice of God, are venerable to all who fear him; and it is a certain characteristick of a diffolute and ungovern'd mind, to rail or fpeak difrepectfully of them in general. It is certain, that in fo great a crowd of men fome will intrude, who are of tempers very unbecoming their function; but because ambition and avarice are fometimes lodged in that bofom, which ought to be the dwelling of fanctity and devotion, muft this unreasonable Author vilify the whole order? He has not taken the leaft care to disguise his being an enemy to the perfons against whom he writes, nor any where granted that the inftitution of religious men to ferve at the altar, and inftruct fuch who are not as wife as himself, is at all neceffary

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